Pushing disks together -- The continuous-motion case (Q1275674)

Consider a finite number of circular disks in the plane. The authors show that the area of their union does not increase if the disks are moved continuously such that each center-center distance is a nonincreasing function of time. This is a generalization of a previous result on unit disks due to \textit{B. Bollobás} [Elem. Math. 23, 60-61 (1968; Zbl 0153.51903)] and has been proved independently by \textit{B. Csikós} [Bolyai Soc. Math. Stud. 6, 291-299 (1997; Zbl 0888.51023)]. The authors also prove analogous theorems concerning the area of the intersection and the area of a bounded component of the complement of the union. One of the main tools is the power diagram of the disks restricted to their union. As an auxiliary result which may be of independent interest the authors derive the following theorem: Let \(c_{1},\ldots ,c_{4}\) be the centers of four disks. Among all quadrilaterals \(c_{1}c_{2}c_{3}c_{4}\) with fixed side lengths, the area of the union of the disks is maximized if the power diagram has a vertex of degree four.